Prayer Circles, Big Dreams and a Kid Named Ancent

This is a picture of a kid named Ancent.  He's 5 years old and lives in Nairobi, Kenya with his mom and his 13 year old brother.  At age 3 Ancent's father was brutally killed by thugs who robbed him on his way home from work.   Last week he came into our lives at Fairfax Circle Church.  Here's the backstory.

About three years ago a woman in our church, after reading Kay Warren's book Dangerous Surrender, had a God-sized dream.  Actually at the time the dream was pretty vague - "orphans in Africa."  So we began, what Mark Batterson would call, circling that dream in prayer.   It's been amazing to see God work and bring clarity to that original dream.

It's also been amazing to see God bring the right people to help us chase this dream.  People like Pastor Charles and our partner church Nairobi Gospel Centre.  A group of ladies from NGC who, before we ever met them, were having the same dream.  My friend Enock Matte, who has done an incredible amount of work at lightening speed in Nairobi to get this dream off the ground.  The folks who launched Side By Side Ministries to help generate funds.  And countless others.

Our dream is pretty basic - to help vulnerable children like Ancent.  We want to find ways to help parents who are at risk of not being able to keep their kids, keep their kids.  And for those kids who have been orphaned or abandoned, we want to find them a loving home with family who will care for them and show them God's love.

We abandoned our original idea of building an orphanage.  Why we do something in Kenya that we wouldn't do in America?  We also knew that the family was God's idea and He created everyone for family.  So we decided to find ways to help families foster those kids that have no families and to help struggling parents find a way to provide for their kids so that abandoning does not have to be an option.

My dream for this ministry is pretty simple and pretty big - 1,000 kids in the next 10 years.  That's going to involve a lot of resources, a lot of work and a lot of people.  But God is a big God and I don't think he's interested in small dreams.

In Kenya they have a saying that goes like this "kidogo kidogo hujaza kibaba."  It means "little by little the cup is filled."  That's what our church and Nairobi Gospel Centre, are doing.  We're working together, at a steady pace, "little by little" filling the cup.  Our goal for this year is 10 kids by the end of 2012.  And then our hope and prayer is to have a snowball effect.

But today we're celebrating and praising God that Ancent was just enrolled in a better school and that some of his family's basic needs are being met.   And that God has allowed us to be a part, in some small way, of his life.